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Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

Imagine you’re setting off on a cross-country road trip.

You’ve packed your favourite snacks, curated your perfect playlist, and checked off every item on your packing list. Finally, you’re ready to go!

But just as you settle into the rhythm of the highway, your trusty car starts to sputter. The ‘Check Engine’ light flickers ominously on the dashboard. A sinking feeling sets in as you coast to the side of the road. The need for a necessary pre-trip safety check has made your journey standstill. Bummer!

Like this road trip, every e-learning project is a journey, and every slide in Storyline and every trigger is a step toward your destination.

Like the safety check could have saved your road trip from unexpected interruptions, testing your e-learning course before delivery safeguards your e-learning journey, ensuring that every part functions as it should.

Here are five quick tips to test your e-learning course:

1. Define Clear Requirements: Before you build your course, specify the computer/device specifications (browsers, screen size, connection speed, etc.) that your course should work on.
   
2. Assign Specific Testing Roles: Have the QA Tester focus on functional requirements, the instructional designer check content accuracy, and an editor scrutinise grammar and punctuation.
   
3. Use a Comprehensive Checklist: Create a thorough checklist of elements to review. Don’t rely on memory, and avoid spot-checking to prevent missed issues.
   
4. Leverage Testing Tools: Test on various systems, browsers, and SCORM Cloud for LMS functionality.
   
5. Embrace the Learner’s Perspective: Understand that learners navigate courses differently. Make instructions clear and accessible, and ensure functionality regardless of the learner’s pace or interaction order.

I hope these tips will help to better test your next E-learning project.

If you enjoyed this post and want to learn more about creating e-learning courses with Articulate Storyline, you can watch my YouTube videos here

Thanks for reading.

 Mark

Read time: 2 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

Let’s bust a common e-learning Myth:

Learners read text in an e-learning course word-by-word
..
..
What do you think? True or False?
..
..
I’ll give it away right away.

Most of your learners usually skim the pages in an e-learning course looking for something meaningful to them and skip what’s irrelevant to them.

Is there nothing you can do about this behaviour?

Yes, you certainly do. From research, two key findings make texts read your e-learning course better:

1. When learners find the information they are interested in, they are likely to read the related content word for word.
2. Well-structured pages designed for cursory reading are more likely to be read.

Let’s translate these two findings into some practical tips so learners read text better in your next e-learning course.

1.Know the ‘problem’ you want to solve

The most important reason for the success of your e-learning course is to be extremely sharp about what ‘problem’ you are going to solve with your e-learning course. And find out how your target audience experiences this problem. With this information, you can create an e-learning module where your target audience will find the information they need to work on their problem.

2. Create an introduction that is strong and engaging.

Make sure it grabs the learner’s attention and makes them curious about the rest of the e-learning. For example, ask a stimulating question, tell an anecdote or provide a surprising fact about the content.

3. Use meaningful headers that clearly describe what each section is about.

Headers break up paragraphs of text and hook your learner in to dive deeper into the content. Imagine your learners are drunk, sleepy, and distracted: if they saw your headers for five seconds, would they know what your entire piece is about? If not, you may have trouble engaging most readers.

4. Write in short paragraphs

Long blocks of text are discouraging and encourage scanning rather than reading. Instead, write in short, easy-to-read paragraphs in plain language that hold your learner’s attention and make the content easier to understand.

5. Use white space to create visual balance

White space is important because it improves the readability of your text. If you cram a lot of text into one place, your learners are more likely to scan rather than read. Therefore, use white space to break up the text and make the content easier to read. Use bullet points whenever possible. Applying these tips will let your readers read your texts rather than just scan them. This will increase your learner’s engagement and understanding of the content.

Read time: 2 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

I share my most important tip for every Storyline project in this email.

A successful Storyline project does not start…..

By opening a new storyline file and starting to create a course from a blank slide.

I can share this secret 😉 with you.

The quickest and easiest way to create eLearning content is by using eLearning templates.

eLearning templates serve as blueprints on how to build eLearning content for e-Learning professionals to develop effective, professional-looking e-Learning courses.

The biggest benefits of e-learning templates are that:

• Your courses look better and also have a consistent appearance
• subject matter experts do not have to deal with design or technology and can concentrate on the content
• development is faster – you’ll save time and money on your project
• the learning curve of the Articulate Storyline as an authoring tool is lowered
• they are bug-free

There are a variety of ways to find eLearning templates to use for your next e-learning project. You can:

• Use the templates provided by Storyline 360. Check out the Articulate 360 Content Library for some really helpful templates
• Purchase ready-made e-learning templates. FasterCourse.com has the best e-learning template around on the internet. With the coupon code upwardonline you’ll get a 10% discount on all their templates and starter courses. Go check it out!
• Having customised templates made just for your organisation
• Create your own set of e-learning templates
  
• Using e-learning templates will improve your productivity and enhance your e-learning courses’ quality. E-learning templates are the best start in every e-learning project, regardless of your experience.

I hope this tip was valuable to you

Read time: 4 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

Tell me, and I forget, teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.

This is a famous quote, and it is right.

Engaged learners are the dream of every instructional designer. 

But how can you create engaging e-learning courses?

That’s a great question.

In this e-mail, we will review the steps you have to take to create engaging e-learning courses that wow your learners.

The most important rule for engaging e-learning is to make your e-learning course hyper-relevant for your learners.

How can you do this?

By focusing on the outcome of your e-learning for your learners. In other words, what must a learner do differently after following your course?

But how do you know what a learner needs to do differently at the end of your course?

1. Focus on the business goal.

Don’t understand how to do this?

Let’s look at an example.

You are invited to create training for a chemical plant to reduce absence. 15% of the plant personnel are out of work for long periods due to workplace accidents. Management has set a goal to get absence down 10% by the end of 2023.

Here’s your company goal: absence due to accidents must be down 10% by the end of 2023.

Now it’s not about what people need to know to ensure the company goal is met but what people need to do. You need to discover what people need to do and see why they are not doing it.

Once you know this, you can move on to step 2.

2. Come up with a concept for your e-learning course

To come up with a concept for your e-learning course.

What is a concept I hear you ask?

A concept is the story, theme and idea behind your e-learning course.

A few examples for our course about safety in the chemical plant

You can create a game called ‘Find the hazard’ where a learner follows a worker in the factory. There are different types of hazards. the sooner the learner spots a hazard the more points he gets.

You can also create a course with scenarios where you must guide a worker safely throughout his day by making decisions before situations.

You can come up with a lot of examples like that. In which you have to see what best suits the learner and the business goal.

3. Attention-grabbing content

If you have a business goal and you come up with a concept for your e-learning, it’s time for the content of your e-learning.

Why content and not Visual design?

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design. It’s decoration.

You have to gather the information within the organisation that you need and transform this into an attention-grabbing script to have the learner’s attention right from slide 1.

An active writing style alone is not enough to grab the learner’s attention.

You have to try harder.

So study the best storytelling techniques, learn the tips and tricks of marketing copywriters and apply them in your e-learning.

4. Visual design

The last step for an engaging e-learning course is visual design. With the design of your e-learning course, you can set the tone for a mood for your learner.

But it also ensures aesthetic appeal and usability, making your course better with suitable images, typography, space, layout and colours.

You need all four components to create engaging e-learning in the right proportion. The upcoming week I will discuss the various components in more detail.

Read time: 4 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

Let’s imagine you’re the owner of a restaurant. You’d want it to be welcoming to everyone, right?

If a customer comes in a wheelchair to your restaurant, you’d want them to be able to enter your restaurant, manoeuvre around the tables in the restaurant and go to the toilet without any problems.  

You’d want them to have the same enjoyable experience a potential customer without a wheelchair would have.

Now you might think, Yes, Mark, that’s pretty obvious for my imaginary restaurant.

Sure, I understand, but did you ask yourself the same question about the e-learning courses you’re creating? Are they accessible to people with disabilities or limitations?

You want to create accessible e-learning courses that are accessible to everyone, including people who are colour-blind or visually impaired.

Did you know that in the United States, 1 in every 4 adults has a disability? That’s why accessibility in e-learning is crucial. Accessibility makes online learning usable by people with disabilities. It ensures that all learners can participate fully and access the course.

and that’s why your e-learning should be POUR

If you want your e-learning modules to be fully accessible, they must meet WCAG guidelines. But that’s quite a list. if you want to make quick steps, ensure your e-learning is POUR.

POUR stands for:

• Perceivable
• Operable
• Understandable
• Robust

Now let’s look at each category to see what the terms mean and how you can apply them in your next e-learning course to make it more accessible.

Perceivable: is all about introducing the information and components of our site in a way that all users can understand.

You can accomplish this in your e-learning courses by making sure that all non-text content has a text alternative so that people who follow your course with a screen reader also be able to understand what the course is about.

In Storyline, you can give your images an alt text. You can do this by selecting the image and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter, and entering a text that describes the images a good as possible.

Operable: means that users must be able to use your e-learning course, and it cannot require interaction that a learner cannot perform. So, for instance, a learner who can’t handle a mouse must go through your e-learning course with his keyboard.

Therefore it’s good to look at the focus order of the items on your slide. This means a user can use the TAB key on his keyboard to navigate through your slide. It’s important that the elements on your slider are in a logical order.

If this isn’t the case, you can adjust the focus order by clicking Focus order in the Home tab in Storyline and choosing to create a custom focus order.

Understandable: this means that your e-learning course’s information and operation must be understandable.

Try to look through the eyes of a learner. Is the design of the e-learning course completely logical for a user? If not, you can add instructions, for instance, if a user has to answer a question or a video must be played.

Robust: this is the last one. Robust means that content in your e-learning course must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by various user agents, including assistive technologies.

For instance, screen readers or other tools that people with disabilities can use to operate your e-learning.

There is much more to say about e-learning and accessibility. But if you keep the POUR guidelines in mind as you build your next e-learning course, you will make a good start on the road to e-learning courses that everyone can use.

Read time: 2 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

In today’s fast-changing digital world with technologies such as Augmented Reality, Adaptive Learning and Artificial Intelligence, it is crucial to constantly evolve and enhance your skills to stay ahead of the game.

But how do you do this on top of all your client projects and other pursuits?
In this week’s newsletter, I explore 3 tips and tricks to help you become a better eLearning professional.
If you’re ready, put on your game face and learn how you can stay ahead of the competition.

1. learn more

Tip 1 is to structurally allocate time in your weekly schedule to stay informed and learn about everything that is hot and happening in the world for you as an e-learning developer.
Do I have to keep track of everything?
Absolutely not!
My tip: make sure you are aware of all new developments and pick your battles where your interests lie.
Pick one subject and immerse yourself in it for one quarter. Think about what you want to achieve by the quarter’s end. And then choose another topic for the next quarter.
Then I automatically come to point 2.

2. Don’t just consume. Get your hands dirty

don’t just watch YouTube videos and follow courses on LinkedIn Learning or Udemy; get to work.

• Do you want to learn more about Storytelling? Write a kick-ass Storyboard for a new (fictional) course where you incorporate Storytelling elements.
• More interested in JavaScript and Storyline? Use JavaScript to enhance an existing e-learning course with Greensock animation elements.
• If your heart is more in UX design, create a new design for an e-learning course based on emotional design.

I hope you get the drill with these examples 😉 Choose what makes you happy to do this alongside your work. Now, let’s get on with the third tip.

3. Teach others what you’ve learned

teaching someone else is the best way to learn, according to research. There is even a name for the protégé effect.
When you learn something with the intention to teach it later, you learn it more deeply.
questions to get a deeper understanding when learning, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is so interesting and valuable that it would be worth teaching to others?
• How would I go about explaining this concept to someone else?

A great advantage of Teaching something is that it reveals gaps in your knowledge.

But how can you teach others? You can…

• Start a blog where you explain what you’ve learned
• Create a series of YouTube videos
• Speak at a conference or invite yourself on a podcast to discuss your topic.
• Organize a summer school session in your company for interested colleagues about your topic.

Becoming a better e-learning professional takes time and effort.

Learning, applying, and sharing what you know is a process.

With my tips above, you’ll be on your way to success!

Read time: 4 minutes

Today’s issue of my blog is sponsored by FasterCourse.com. FasterCourse has more than 50 beautifully designed and programmed Articulate Storyline e-learning templates that hundreds of people worldwide use to create effective and engaging e-learning courses. (including me!)

With the coupon code upwardonline, you’ll now get a 10% discount on all of the FasterCourse e-learning templates! Go to the FasterCourse website and enter the coupon code on the checkout page for your 10% discount!

You know a good (or bad design) when you see one!

But how can you designate a design’s qualities (or flaws)?

Or use the qualities in your e-learning designs, especially if you’re not a designer?

It’s all about CRAP.

And it’s not what you think it is 😉

C.R.A.P is a set of graphic design principles described by Robin Patricia Williams in her book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book. It stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity.

If you use the C.R.A.P principles, you can consistently create compelling designs.

Now let’s go through the four principles one by one. So you learn what the different principles mean and how to apply them as you create your next e-learning course.

Let’s start with the first principle

1.   Contrast

Contrast is all about making things stand out. You can use it to drive your learner’s attention to specific elements on your slide. You have different types of contrast, for instance:

• Size
• Shape
• Shade
• Color
• Proximity

How can you use contrast?

Determine first which elements in your composition you want to emphasise. Then use colour, texture, form, and other elements to create contrast and draw attention to the emphasised elements.

See this example with colour contrast for the two buttons on a result slide.

2.     Repetition

Repetition is how you maintain consistency in your design. In addition, it helps your learners get familiarised with how you present information to them.

If you repeat design elements on your slides, such as titles in the same font and font size, layout, colour schemes and so on, you provide visual cues to your leaner so that they can follow the course content and understand how it all fits together.

How can you use repetition?

Determine the elements you want to repeat in your composition. Design them. If you want to know that these elements have the same design on every slide in your e-learning, you can use Font themes, colour themes, text styles and Slide masters.

3.     Alignment

Alignment determines how elements are positioned on your slides in your e-learning. With alignment, no element on your slides is positioned arbitrarily. Instead, each element visually connects to the other elements, leading to cohesiveness in your designs.

How to use alignment?

Use a consistent alignment to create a visual structure and organisation. Also, align the text so it’s easier to read and understand. 

See how elements are aligned in this example. And the paragraph of text is left aligned, so it’s better readable.

And the last principle…

4. Proximity

Proximity structures your e-learning. Proximity means placing related items closer to each other. This principle helps learners recognise the relationship between objects more easily. So, identify connected elements in closer proximity and separate the unrelated ones.

How to use proximity?

Determine which elements in your e-learning are related to each other. Then, place these related elements close to each other to create a sense of grouping and organisation. See the example of the result slide above with the quiz result section on the left.

These CRAP design principles are simple rules, but they can make a massive difference in the design of your e-learning course if you use them correctly.

If you enjoyed this post and want to learn more about creating e-learning courses with Articulate Storyline, you can watch my YouTube videos here. 

Thanks for reading.

Mark